


Than Soul Can Hope.

by withoutwords



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Fantasy, Jealousy, M/M, Magic, Non-sexual Consent Issues, Pining, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I like you, Ronon,” he says, and laughs, because it sounds so childish and pathetic. He’s ashamed, irreparably shameful, for the first time since he met Ronon. He has to look at the floor. “I like you, and I guess that means I – I wanted to keep you to myself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Than Soul Can Hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Enemy At The Gate. This runs on the somewhat utopian premise that they returned to The Pegasus Galaxy, and thus returned to duty. Title from ‘I Carry Your Heart’ by E.E. Cummings.
> 
> *There is an area of consent that may bother some readers, so please read the authors note below for peace of mind. Thank you :)

“I’m having dinner with Amelia,” Ronon says to John when they’ve finished a tense sparring match that has now cut into lunch. John has a gash along his collarbone, short and jagged and probably too deep if he looks closely; he’s never been great with his own blood.

“Sounds nice,” John tells him, and, “Pass me that towel, would ya?” and Ronon goes one better, applying pressure.

“I don’t…” his voice trails off, and he’s looking at John like he did when he was learning how to use cutlery. A lost little boy with no point of reference. Oh, John thinks, _right_.

“I guess it’s been a while, huh?”

“Well – yeah – but no,” Ronon abandons the towel, and John takes over. “I meant, dinner. Do I have to … look nice or?”

John doesn’t try to contain his laughter, Ronon hitting him in the gut with his bantos rod. John decides he won’t go with the _if she’s attracted to you already I don’t see what looking nice would achieve_ line, because it’s unfair and Ronon’s beyond the cheap jokes. “Well, maybe you can wear a shirt or something. You know, like you did when I had to go home.”

 _To my dad’s funeral_ hangs heavy in the air. Ronon just nods.

“Okay. I – I think I used it to clean my knives.” 

*

It doesn’t register as a problem for a while. They go off-world, complete missions; get stuck in some godforsaken, backwards planet with Ronon bleeding out, Jennifer’s hands in his guts and Rodney vomiting in the corner. It’s perfectly normal until John runs into Amelia with puffy red eyes and a wracking sob.

“I’m sorry Colonel,” she says when John herds her into a quiet corner. “I’m just – I’m not used to worrying so much, you know?”

It takes John a moment to understand that she means _Ronon_. The man she has been having dinner with and sharing drinks with and following back to his quarters. The man with the flickering eyes and grunting questions, the man who’d probably rather stab himself in the face than tell someone, _I have real feelings for this person_. 

She’s worried about _Ronon_.

“He’s gonna be _fine_ ,” John assures her, even if he’d sat by Ronon’s unconscious body half the night and read to him from his old, tattered copy of _Lord of the Flies_. He hadn’t been worried, he’d just been … thoughtful. Teyla said he was getting good at that. 

“I know. _I know_ , I just …” Amelia wipes her face again, and plasters on a smile. She puts her hands behind her back, like a soldier addressing her Colonel. “Thank you. I should get back to work.”

*

It was like an itch, at first. A crawling, bug-like sensation; he felt like he’d been infected from the inside out. John started to notice things where he hadn’t before. Ronon touching the small of her back, or Amelia smiling through the hood of her lashes. It was Flirting 101, and John used to be the master. Now he can’t even remember the last time he had sex. 

“You’re weird,” Ronon tells John through a mouthful of pie, crinkling his brow. 

“Huh.” John says. He works with a hypochondriac scientist, a pacifist with Wraith DNA and a guy who spent seven years digging holes in his own back. _He’s_ weird? “I’ve heard that.” 

“You laughed at Rodney’s joke about subatomic particles,” Ronon says, and the heavy way he rolls the words around his tongue makes John smile. Honestly, he doesn’t even remember hearing the joke. 

“It’s good to throw him a bone now and then,” John hedges. “You know, makes him feel appreciated.”

“Are you dying?” 

“ _Huh_?” John rasps, choking on his apple. “Where’d that come from?”

Ronon gives him a little shrug. His shirt is loose at the collar, exposing skin. He’s still a little grey around the edges; pale and thin where he used to be flushed and strong. “On Sateda the ill used to spend their final days repaying any last debts. With money, labour, kind acts.”

“I’m not dying.”

“Okay.” Ronon smiles so big that his eyes squint. “I’m glad.”

“Thanks for your concern.”

“Any time. You want to spar?”

“Why, so I _can_ die? No thanks. Why don’t you start your kind acts early and give me that cake?”

Ronon shoves the whole piece in his mouth, still grinning, and John has to look away.

*

John samples too much of the native wine on one of their explorative missions, slumping and slopping when he settles in next to Ronon. Ronon’s blocking most of the heat from the fire, but he’s like an oversized conductor, radiating his own warmth.

“Tell me something,” John says, crossing his legs, then crossing his arms, his tankard sloshing over. “When the Ancients reclaimed Atlantis you took off with Tayla to keep fighting the Wraith.”

“Uh huh.”

“But when we crash landed on Earth last year you weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well?” John sniffs and rubs at his nose and is just sober enough to know, distantly, that he’s embarrassing himself. “What happened?”

“Uh,” Ronon shifts, the material of his clothes scratching against John’s. The flames cast black and gold shadows across his face, across the lines of the tautening muscles in his arms. John licks his lips. “About two years.”

“Yeah, but,”

“You’re my family, Sheppard. You, McKay, Teyla – what…” Ronon seems to lose the words for a moment, giving his head a minute shake and sipping from his own cup. His lips are shiny when they pull away. “I honour my people by protecting my kin.”

“Is that a Satedan proverb or something?”

“No. It’s just the truth.” 

*

They’re fucking. John doesn’t know this in any definite way; like Rodney’s science or Tayla’s faith, it’s just something he can assume. They touch a lot now, publicly, Ronon seems to grab for Amelia unconsciously, lets his hands linger, lets his eyes wander. John can see it in his gaze. Heat.

They’re fucking, except John spots them out on a balcony one warm night and has to step back and catch his breath. Ronon’s got Amelia pressed against the rail and his face in her neck and they’re just standing there, breathing together. There’s no movement, they’re statuesque, and John feels it like the broken rubble of abandoned cities. As if a war’s been lost, because he never had the courage to fight.

They’re fucking, but maybe that’s just a word John can live with. 

*

John started folding paper planes when he was five. Every turn, tuck and line was prodded into perfection; magazines and homework sheets and junk mail emblazoned with _FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF_. Red and black and orange and white, his bedroom floor was just a rainbow of planes until his father finally caved and started buying him the models.

John’s never wanted, needed, _loved_ something that way again. It’s easy to give your heart to the sky, and your body to the machine. It’s easy to leave the world behind.

Nancy had said, “Will you ever put your feet back on the ground?” the same day she left him, and it was fair. It was right of her to ask, because he’d promised her. He’d vowed to put her above all else and he hadn’t.

He’s convinced he never will.

“Sheppard!” They’re barely back through the gate and disarming when Ronon spins John around by his collar, his top lip curled in a snarl. He smells like singed cotton and sweat. “What the hell was that?”

“I made a call based on - ”

“You made a _bad_ call.”

“Hey. Just because - ”

“He’s right,” Rodney says lazily, strolling past and tapping away on his tablet. His voice trails off as he goes, “It was a bad call. Set us back, oh, two days at best. If I can refigure the co-ordinates I might be able to…”

“Alright, I made a bad call,” John presses on, Ronon’s knuckles pressed at his pulse point and John’s heart heavy at his feet. “I’m sorry. I just thought…”

 _You might have been hurt,_ John doesn’t say. _You might not have made it through that last stretch and I’d be hauling your body back in a bag and watching your girlfriend cry over your corpse._

Ronon’s searching John’s face for an answer, and when he comes back with nothing he grunts, pushes and stalks off. John watches him go, the whole way.

*

John’s aware of their team’s success and aware of the reasons why. Teyla’s nurturing heart, and Rodney’s unbeatable brain, and the long streak of Ronon’s loyalty, the hard shield of his fighting stance. John’s led them right, returned them to safety, more times than he can count.

It’s always the times he messes up that he remembers.

“This isn’t fair,” Teyla says when she comes to his quarters, crossing the threshold without John inviting her first. If he hadn’t known something was off, that would have been his first clue. “You can’t punish him for how you feel.”

“I don’t know what you’re - ” John starts, strangled, but Teyla’s pursing her lips.

“Yes, you do. I’m sorry, John, I have tried to keep quiet for some time now.”

“ _Some time_? How long?”

“It’s not important. You have to end this.”

“I’m not doing anything!” he protests, and they both know he’s lying. He _wants_ to do nothing. He wants to feel and be and know nothing about Ronon any more, just until he’s through with this. _Sane_.

“John,” Teyla says softly, stepping forward and taking a hand in his. “You have a choice. You tell him how you feel, or you let him go.”

“I don’t know how I feel, Teyla,” John snaps, stalking away and creating some space. His skin is hot all over, an angry burn. “I get stupid when things change. Your pregnancy, Rodney’s transfer - ”

“That’s different John,” she says gently, soothing, and he feels boxed in. He feels like she’s trying to talk him in from the ledge. “You weren’t envious of Kanaan, or Jennifer.”

“I’m jealous? That’s how I feel?”

“Isn’t it?” 

_I’m jealous_ , he thinks to himself, just to see what that feels like, just to know the truth of it. Outside of his wife (and Elizabeth, maybe, if she hadn’t been his CO, and they both hadn’t been so … so), John had friends he’d lay down his life for and lovers he’d lay down for a night. There had been no in-between. 

“I’m stupid,” John says, and growls, walking away so he won’t have to answer his own question.

*

John paces the city for an hour, or more, counts his steps or hums a tune or tries to remember who won the World Series from ’89 to 2000. He blocks it out, and blocks it out, until he’s standing in the middle of the gym and watching Ronon do chin ups.

Ronon doesn’t even look at him.

“Can I tell you something?”

 _You can_ , Rodney’s voice says in the recesses of John’s mind, _but may you? Does he want you to?_

“I’ve been screwing up a lot, these last few weeks,” he admits, and Ronon makes a huffing noise, dropping from the bar. He still won’t look at John, towelling at the sweaty skin of his face, the hard lines of his forehead. His dreadlocks are loose, and his clothes are all crumpled, and he looks so worn in, so warm.

“I’m having trouble dealing with you and Amelia,” John hears himself say, and it feels like throwing a live grenade. Like he should just spin on his heel and run. 

Ronon’s body goes quiet as he looks over, something simmering just below the surface. “You don’t like Amelia?”

“Sure I do. She’s great.”

Ronon’s hands settle at his sides. John’s seen him regard opponents this way, just waiting for the other person to mess up. John already has. “Then what’s the problem?”

“It’s uh – the problem is me. I like her, but…”

“Sheppard.”

“I like you, Ronon,” he says, and laughs, because it sounds so childish and pathetic. He’s ashamed, irreparably shameful, for the first time since he met Ronon. He has to look at the floor. “I like you, and I guess that means I – I wanted to keep you to myself. It’s selfish, and it’s wrong, but I guess I didn’t see it until it was happening. I’m sorry. Ronon, I’m really - ”

John doesn’t realise Ronon’s inched closer until he has a big, thick hand around John’s throat, pulling him closer. “You’re kidding,” he hisses, the tight pressure like a vice, John struggling to drag in breath. “Tell me you’re kidding,”

He only manages to gasp, “I’m sorry,” not bothering to fight back when Ronon throws him to the ground. It’s like a punch to his spine, forcing out a wheeze, and John’s vision goes fizzy and lopsided. He doesn’t realise Ronon’s left until he hears the doors hiss shut behind him, and John just lies there until he can gather the strength to face himself.

To move on.

*

Ronon doesn’t leave. 

John doesn’t know if that’s loyalty to the team, or Amelia, or just because he has nowhere else to go. He watches Ronon across a table, or a room, or a combat zone, and he sees something new. Something fleeting.

There’s defeat in his eyes, the kind that John hasn’t seen since the first day in that cave. When he was bone-deep exhausted, and out of options; days away from digging himself a shallow grave. Ronon had told him.

Ronon had told him a lot of things, and now there’s this. Them. And Ronon won’t say a word.

“Colonel,” Rodney says quietly as John starts to move away from their breakfast table. “Is everything alright?”

John’s almost surprised by the sentiment – not because Rodney’s incapable, but because John thought he was doing a better job of hiding it. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Rodney considers his tray, and spears at some potato with his fork. “Well, if you ever need anything. I mean I’m not that great at talking about – well I’m great at talking just not always great at – well, anyway, if you ever need a friend.”

John falters. He wonders what that might achieve, talking. Growing up his house was just a patchwork of people saying nothing, or saying the wrong thing, to the point where John had to go to another galaxy to be free of it.

“Thanks,” is all that John can say right now, and at least it’s meaningful. “Thanks a lot, Rodney.” 

*

PX4-30 is dense with trees, flowering oranges and blues. The air smells like something familiar, homely, cinnamon or vanilla, but John can’t put his finger on it. He leads the team along a steep ravine, Ronon trailing and Rodney in the middle babbling to Teyla about how his grandmother used to make _the most amazing maple cookies, straight out of the oven, all gooey on the inside, and_ \- 

“Hey,” John hisses, fist up and feet still. Rodney runs head first into his back.

“Do you _mind_? I - ”

“Sssh,” John says, listening to Ronon and Teyla raise their guns. They’re silent. John listens in the direction of the sound, like a far off melody somewhere beyond the rocks. It’s north, up along the hills, and John motions their directions so they can circle in. No-one moves for a moment, and Rodney says,

“There’s nothing on the reading,” obviously trusting his computer more than John instincts. As usual. “It’s probably just something blowing in the breeze, some old garbage or - ”

“There is no _breeze_ , Rodney,” John whispers, but Teyla cuts in with,

“I don’t hear anything either.” When John looks over at Ronon he seems to agree, but he shrugs at John as if to say _I’ll do it anyway, I don’t care_. John can still hear the music, despite it seeming to come from a place deep in the earth and he redirects them to move off. If he’s wrong, they go home safely and if he’s not – and they live- he can gloat to Rodney about it later.

They ascend, quietly, a few simple manoeuvres and muddled orders are all that is heard until finally coming to a large clearing. Ronon says, “What the…?” beating John to it, and they’re all stock-still as if frozen solid.

There’s an arc of overhanging trees, like willows. Their branches are streamed with colourful ribbon and thin, ceramic looking chimes; the trees almost look man made. As if children had been here once, lived in it, made it their home. John feels himself walking towards it, slowly, the sound of the others chatting going fuzzy from behind him. He thinks he can hear voices, whispers, and as he reaches out and touches a swaying branch, Teyla’s there pushing him back.

“Colonel!”

“Have you learnt _nothing_?” Rodney is saying from somewhere to his left. “I’m sorry, but does dream-invading tree spirits mean nothing to you?”

“I just need to - ” John hears himself saying, trying to push Teyla away, but then Ronon is there holding him by the shoulders. John feels like a warm flick of flame is curling to him, reeling him in. He can hear music, and smell sweet aromas, and if he can just find a little shelter beyond the trees then maybe he can – 

He blacks out.

*

John dreams in pale colours, like the old, fading photographs his mother would stick to the refrigerator. There are doors and hallways and the thick, metal cording of the rails of a bridge – Atlantis, maybe, or some dream-like version of it. The dream shuffles like a deck of cards, from the city to the sky to beyond. John thinks he might be walking, or drifting, from star to star, until he hears a voice behind him,

 _Sheppard_.

Ronon’s gruff, and tentative, but not mean. He’s close, in and out like wisps of smoke, and he’s smiling a little. His hand feels warm where it touches John’s face and neck, and when he leans in close with his mouth slightly open John doesn’t know why he stops him to say, 

_You’re not angry?_

_About what?_

_About –_

Ronon’s got John pressed against something, got his mouth pressed to John’s jaw. John tries to say it, tries to say, _how I feel about you, how I want you, how I like you a lot, more than I’ve cared about anyone in a while and I can’t lose you Ronon, please don’t…_

John tries to talk but the pressure of Ronon’s mouth is too much, gasping for air, and he presses and presses like he’s climbing inside, like he’s second skin. 

John’s quiet.

*

He wakes up a day later, the cool grey of the infirmary ceiling a familiar sight. Jennifer spends another two days running useless tests, taking blood and running scans and making him pee in a cup despite John insisting that he’s fine. Actually, he feels good. 

“When you say _recharged_ ,” Jennifer says, an uncertain face and fidgeting hands.

“You remember the Energizer bunny, right?” he tells her with a smirk, but she doesn’t look pleased about it. John feels like he went to sleep in 1980 and woke up now, which would have been great considering his weird obsession with _New Kids on the Block_ as a kid. When his brother had found out John had spent months doing his chores to keep him quiet.

“I can’t find anything… _different_ about you.”

“That’s because I’m fine,” he tells her for the tenth time, ignoring her objections when he climbs up off the gurney. They have Rodney and his scientists back on the planet, trying to figure out what went wrong; Teyla stopped by with a gurgling Torren and Ronon lingered outside with a chip on his shoulder. Everything’s normal.

“I’m just concerned - ”

“That’s your job, I get it,” John says. “And thanks. I just can’t stay here any more, Doc. I hate Sudoku, and Jelly, and that noise that’s always humming in my ear, what is that?”

“What - ” she starts to argue, but when John starts putting his boots on without another word and she gives up with a heavy sigh. John wonders how she does it, particularly in this kind of environment; when every person aside from McKay tries to convince her there’s nothing wrong with them. “Okay. Just promise me you won’t do anything strenuous.”

“I swear on Rodney’s trophy cabinet.”

“ _Mean_.”

John winks at her and goes to gather his things. There’s nothing wrong with him, there’s no threat to the city, Woolsey’s already met with the IOA and talked them down from whatever high horse they’d gotten onto this time. John’s not sure where all the concern is coming from. They’re his family, he’s grateful for their care, but he’s been in worse shape.

“ _Ronon_?” 

Ronon looks up from where he’s perched on the edge of John’s bed. His eyes are bloodshot, dark underneath, and every muscle in his body seems to ripple from the tension. John wonders how long he’s been sitting in the same place.

“There’s something going on.”

*

John was there when Ronon tried his first slice of pizza. When he ran his personal best around the outskirts of the city, and played HORSE with Lorne at the gym. John was there when Ronon had shed a few tears after Torren was born because he’d met a woman in a village destroyed by the Wraith and she’d had a baby boy too. 

John was there when Ronon embraced him, tight, and said, _I’m sorry they’re sending us back_.

John was there, shocked, realising Ronon was just sorry for him, for the thought of what he might have had now they were back on Earth. For the ideal he’d always carry because of Sateda.

John wasn’t sorry at all.

*

John summons Rodney back to the city, and brings Teyla into the laboratories to go over his findings. Keller’s keeping Ronon comfortable in the infirmary, and Woolsey’s agreed to stay out of it – for now – and John’s hoping someone can come up with something, here, because it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He didn’t want to hurt him.

“Colonel!” Zelenka exclaims when they come into the room, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

“Uh, yeah, can’t keep a good man down. Look, Rodney. I need a word.”

“Well can it wait? We’re just about to - ”

“ _McKay_.”

Rodney jolts at the tone, his hands hovering over his tablet, while Zelenka’s eyebrows shoot so high John can barely see them. He excuses himself, with Teyla’s thanks, and then it’s just the three of them. One big, gaping hole.

“What’s happened?” Rodney asks, stepping closer, and John can barely look at him.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says, biting at his lip, his hands plastered against his waist for strength. Rodney looks like he’s fighting the urge to roll his eyes, going back over his equations with a lazy flick of his wrist.

“Yes, yes, so you’ve said a hundred times, but - ”

“It’s not John,” Teyla offers gently. “It’s Ronon.”

“Why would there be something wrong with Ronon?”

“I was affected by the shrine, but Ronon – “ John stalls. “Ronon was affected by me.”

Rodney considers that for a moment. “Oh,” he says, clicking his fingers, turning to tap at his computer. “Oh, he was the one holding you when you passed out. He carried you back to the gate.”

“No - ”

“Then it must be a contact virus – _don’t touch me_ , let me - ”

John holds out his hands, annoyed, “McKay. Relax. It’s not – it’s got nothing to do with that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ronon was in my room, before.”

“Okay? So?”

“Well, that’s where he’s been for _two days_ , Rodney. In my room, or outside the infirmary. He’s – he’s - ”

“Tethered.” Teyla has a hand around John’s forearm, squeezing it gently for support. He doesn’t know how to say this. In truth, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. What it means. “Either by John’s smell, or by his presence, he – he’s magnetised.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He hasn’t slept.” Teyla goes on. “Or had food. Jennifer’s got him on a drip because he hasn’t had enough fluids. He isn’t functioning.”

“ _Wasn’t_ functioning,” John amends. “Until – until I touched him.”

“ _What_?”

“I put my hand on his shoulder and he – he said it was like a shock. Like – like his heart started beating again.”

Rodney is gaping now. His gaze flits from Teyla to John and back again, one eye closed just a little. “You’re saying that it’s only affecting Ronon?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, who’s the scientist here?” John yells. “That’s what you’re here for!”

“No. No, there’s something going on here, isn’t there? A reason why you’re both so sure it’s not passed on by touch.”

They’re quiet. Rodney’s not backing down and John’s not looking at him. Teyla’s soft, “John,” doesn’t help, like a sharp knife brushing against his throat. “John, please, for Ronon’s sake.”

“I want him,” John finally blurts out, and his hands curl in fists because he’s angry. He’s so mad with himself he could punch something. “ _I want him_ , only me wanting him has turned into him needing me, needing to smell me or hear me or touch me - ”

“Don’t you remember, Rodney,” Teyla goes on for him, apparently ignoring the fact that McKay is staring at John with complete and utter shock. “On PX4-30? John could smell things, and hear things that we could not. He was entranced by the shrine, drawn to it, overcome by it. Don’t you think there has to be a connection there? Don’t you think this is too much of a coincidence to be unrelated?” 

When John finally turns his gaze to Rodney, the other man is still looking at him like a problem he can’t solve. He doesn’t seem bothered, and definitely not revolted, he just looks completely astounded that something like this managed to skip his notice.

“ _You want Ronon_?”

*

While Woolsey can no longer ignore the situation he promises to keep the details within the confines of their team. John sits by Ronon’s bed and threads their fingers together, and no-one but a select few know he’s in there. Ronon’s still Ronon, still pissed about this, but the relief of it apparently outweighs his anger. They just stay like that, Ronon perched on the bed and John in a chair by his side, slumped over a little and not moving. He doesn’t want to cross Ronon’s lines.

“Does Amelia - ” John tries to ask, and Ronon almost crushes his hand.

“Don’t.”

“Right. Sorry.”

The hours turn into a day. Two. Teyla scopes out nearby worlds, and communities, asking the locals if they know of any magic that could explain it. It’s fruitless, in the end, and John knows that Rodney’s endless digging on the planet won’t uncover anything either. He’s cynical, he’s never given this sort of thing the time of day before. Magic.

Only here they are. 

“I’ll bring food,” John tells Ronon and Ronon whimpers.

“I’m not hungry,” and John frowns.

“You will be.”

There’s a political justice to it, really, or at least there would be if John had chosen this. If he’d wanted Ronon to want him back so badly that he would curse him. This wasn’t what John had wanted at all.

“Just go to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” John says, over and over, until Ronon has to believe him. 

On the third night John sneaks out to go sleep in his own bed. To strip off the clothes he’d been wearing since the start; to shower, and wrestle clean shorts on and just lie spread eagled on the bed. He doesn’t stir, or dream, and when Ronon comes into his room it takes a moment to realise that it isn’t one either.

“Sheppard,” he says softly, seductively, John’s arms pinned above his head and their bodies pressed together, skin to skin. John feels him everywhere, feels warm, feels the slow thrust of his cock as it fills, feels like dying.

“Ronon, don’t,” he says in a breathless voice, his head tipped back and Ronon’s teeth against his throat.

“You want me,” Ronon says so rough John almost bows into it. “You want this. Maybe if you get it I’ll be able to get better, we can - ” 

“No – no we can’t,” John says, kneeing him in the side just enough to loosen his grip and crawling out from beneath him. Ronon slumps down, his face in his hands, his growl muffled enough that the next room shouldn’t hear. “There’s no going back from that, Ronon, no.”

“There’s no going _forward_ ,” Ronon says, up on one elbow and waving a hand around. “What the hell am I supposed to do, Sheppard?”

“Rodney’s working on it, he - ”

“McKay doesn’t know what to do! Nobody does!”

“We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

“Yeah,” Ronon grits out, getting up on his feet, the two of them toe to toe. “This. You and me. That’s what it comes down to.”

“You don’t want this.”

Ronon laughs; unamused and hurt, shaking his head like John’s the stupidest person he’s ever met. John can’t disagree. “I wanted this before you knew what it was. I kept quiet for years. I didn’t get in your way. You see me with someone and you say I want you all to myself, Ronon. _Well have me now_.” 

“That’s not – it’s the magic talking, you don’t - ”

Ronon has John’s face in his hands, tilts it for better access and then comes in for a kiss. It’s sharp, cutting, until he finally gains access to John’s mouth. Suddenly it’s slow, and warm, John’s hands coming to curl in his t-shirt and a noise he doesn’t recognise coming from his throat. Ronon could throw him onto the bed. It could be so easy.

“No,” John says, pulling away, because who is he kidding. There’s nothing easy about this. “No.”

*

John considers spending the next day locked up alone in his room. The thought lasts a solid two minutes over his morning coffee, until the guard on Ronon’s door winds up unconscious and John’s room has been pulled apart. John stands at the threshold, his arms folded, Ronon sitting in the middle of the floor.

“You feel better?”

“Fuck you.” In different circumstances John might be upset with Ronon using the words he learned from John against him. “Come here.”

John walks in close enough to let Ronon grab his leg, let him rest his head against his calf and breathe. John feels sick, feels it like bile rising from his stomach, and he’s sorry. He’s so sorry for not knowing, before, for being so caught up in his work, in the universe, that he couldn’t see the life right in front of him.

“John?” Teyla says from somewhere behind them, John’s hand now clasped in Ronon’s dreadlocks. “Ronon? There’s someone here you should meet.”

The woman’s name is Calliope. She has long, straw like hair that almost reaches her legs and a rainbow of scarves in her hair, hoops in her ears, rings on her fingers. She’s soft, and beautiful, and when she smiles at them John almost believes her.

“It’s not a curse,” she says, watching as Ronon tries to move further away from his place next to John, just their pinkie fingers together.

“He has lost his free will,” Teyla argues. “Surely that’s - ”

“Only to a point,” Calliope says. “He can still think for himself, he still knows the truth in his heart. The magic is made to _bind_ , not force, and it certainly doesn’t lure the unwilling.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” John snaps, sensing the uncomfortable shifting of all the people around them. The desperate click of Ronon’s jaw. “Do you know how to fix it?”

“It’s not something you fix, Colonel. Mr. Dex won’t wake up one morning and feel normal. At least not the normal he knew.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m stuck like this,” Ronon snaps, sitting up and staring down their visitor, his nostrils flaring. He’s mad, but he’s also composed – at least composed for Ronon – as if he’d come to this conclusion already. “It means I have to be around him until it doesn’t hurt any more. Right?”

“Uh, yes, I suppose, I - ”

“Thanks a lot,” he bites out, and then he’s storming off in the direction of John’s room. There’s a ringing silence, McKay clearing his throat as if it’s a cue for someone to speak. 

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” Calliope starts but he just puts a gentle hand up to quiet her.

“It’s fine,” he tells her. Everything’s always just fine.

*

Later, John finds out that Amelia had ended things with Ronon that day. The absences and the lies and the erratic nature – it had all been too much for her. John had said sorry and Ronon had knocked him out with an elbow and they never talked about it again. It was a broken piece of Ronon that John couldn't fix, and it wasn't his place to try. 

Weeks passed. They were pressed shoulder to shoulder at lunch, until they could go on missions a few feet apart. They shared a bed, and a shower, and the toilet stall until they could be either side of a door. They went on, just like they'd been told they would, not with a bang or a blaze.

Just gently, almost unnoticeably, the same way they had gotten into this mess in the first place. 

“So he finally told you he loved you, then?” Rodney says offhand when Ronon’s at the buffet and John’s sitting at a table on the other side of the room.

“ _What?_ No. What?”

“I just assumed,” Rodney says through a mouthful of food, gesturing with his fork. “The level of your proximity is diminishing every day and I haven’t been angry with you for a while.”

“That’s great, Rodney.”

“Just the sex then?”

John chokes on his juice, a napkin to his mouth as he splutters all over his shirt. “What?”

Rodney’s clearly surprised. “You’re not having sex?”

“No.”

“Oh.” John and Ronon were alone for the better part of every day, so the mistake was understandable. There had been temptations, sure, Ronon was a beautiful man. He was also comfortable in his own skin. “So, what are you doing?”

“We – we’re talking,” John says, and when he looks up Ronon does too, the shadow of a smirk on his lips as he pushes a dreadlock out of his face. John feels it clench in his chest. “He’s finally started talking to me.”

*

Ronon says, _when I was five I caught a kloot – uh, it’s like a rabbit, I guess, weird ears –_

Ronon says, _she kissed me through her bedroom window, before her dad showed up with a gun at my head –_

Ronon says, _I waited for you to come to my room, that’s just what happens, you know, taskmasters take what they want they don’t ask they don’t –_

Ronon says, _I don’t hate you, how could I hate you, if I hated you I wouldn’t be stuck here, you fucking –_

Ronon talks so much it’s like John’s getting to know a new person. Only he’s not, really, it’s like Calliope said. It’s just their normal that’s changed.

*

The next time Ronon wakes John in the middle of the night, with his arms pinned above his head, John says,

“Please tell me this isn’t - ”

“I want this,” Ronon pants, hoarse and strong, nipping at John’s ear. He lets go of John though, as if to prove a point, kissing his face, his neck, playing at the waistband of John’s pyjamas. He runs his goatee over the soft skin of John’s throat, nuzzling as his hand goes under the cotton of his shorts, and John feels stretched to every corner of the room.

He bucks into it, feels the jolt of heat in his dick like the teeth at his collar, sharp and sore and right, his hands seizing at the sheets desperately.

“John,” Ronon says quietly, and it’s the first time he’s said it this way, in the dark and full of promise, and then he’s coming up to kiss John, the slightest tug of his dick to seal it. “John, tell me you want this.”

“Yeah,” John says, bringing his head off the bed enough to get another kiss, one hand coming up to grip at his neck. He wants to see more, wants to see the muscles in his arms and back and stomach work. He wants to savour. But Ronon’s picking up his pace and John is just a mess of soundwaves, of panting and grunting and saying Ronon’s name, saying,

“I want this – _you_ – I want to be with you.”

“You are,” Ronon says to his open mouth, grabbing John’s hand and slowly tracing it over the contours of his throat, his collar, his chest. “You’re right here. You've always been here.”

"O-Okay," John says, and he's surrendering. His feet are finally on the ground. "I'm with you."

**Author's Note:**

> * Ronon is affected by a magic that forces him to be near John, otehrwise he becomes unwell. There is no quick fix for this magic, as it’s a way of making two people stop denying what is there.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


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